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Re: Adjuvant chemo or not / Decision time for adjuvant chemo

Posted: Tue Sep 10, 2019 1:12 pm
by Amarie123
hwr wrote:I was told basically the same by my oncologist, that my chances of recurrence were about 15-20% if I didnt take chemo, maybe 5% less than that with chemo, although he said there were studies that disagreed with that, and failed to show any benefit. The majority do think there is benefit so it's the standard of care and he was offering it, not recommending it. If he were faced with the decision he wouldnt do chemo he said. At that meeting he offered 6 months Folfox or 3 months Xelox, with equal benefit, although he hates the Xelox option. We didnt talk about eliminating the Oxi from Xelox.

He emphasized that the 15-20% is based on a "herd" of 100 people with all sorts of illnesses and health conditions. including stage IIA. Some can't blow out a match, whereas others such as me are in good shape otherwise, few health issues, exercise daily, dont smoke, non diabetic, good BMI, etc. who he thought would likely do better than the overall 15-20% recurrence.


I was told that regardless of the odds, there is no way to predict who will have a recurrence and who won’t. Overall health, etc are protective factors of course but not a guarantee. I would absolutely go for it and do 6 months of chemo. The infusions are about 2.5 hours, not 4. So while they’re inconvenient I think it’s worth it.

Re: Adjuvant chemo or not / Decision time for adjuvant chemo

Posted: Tue Sep 10, 2019 2:10 pm
by NHMike
One part of the wait on the infusions is for the bloodwork to come back. What I did to improve it was to get bloodwork the day before so that oncologist had the results and we could just get to the infusion.